Reading Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief
by BritishInvasion2202
Summary: Percy is now Persephone Amphitrite Jackson. Luke is good because he's way to hot to be bad. And Annabeth is bad, obviously. Truth be told I suck at summary's but I feel the title says it all. ;) Rated T because I'm paranoid.
1. We got called here for a book? A BOOK?

**Hiiiii! Ok so, basically I'm rewriting Kaciee's story. It will be the same ship(for all those who are worried) but I'm going to be changing the 'Percy Jackson' story to fit her character that I'm forming. And yes, I AM NOT Kaciee. But I hope you like it, I did leave some of the stuff she has in here. **

**~Sierra/BritishInvasion2202**

**Outfits and Characters are in my profile.**

* * *

**Persephone's (Percy) POV:**

I was sitting next to Luke, Thalia, and Nico on the beach. Thalia was here because the hunters were here at camp, her and Nico were talking about the capture the flag game last night, which the campers were the ones who won, while Luke and I were in our own world, showing affection towards each other like we were then, our legs were tangled, his arm was over my shoulder, I had my hand brought up to meet his, intertwined with his. He was leaving little butterfly kisses on my shoulder.

"Luke, Percy! Stop there are little kids here!" Thalia said, while jokingly covering their eyes.

"Shut up." Luke said, but it was muffled, seeing as he had said it with his lips against my neck, which brought out a light moan from me.

"PDA!" Clarisse -one of my many friends came up, holding hands with Chris, who was talking to Connor and Travis, Grover was playing with his reed pipes, and Katie was talking to Silena, and Beckendorf was tinkering with some stuff, while talking to Tyson who had came in for a visit,-shouted

Before anyone else can say anything we were all screaming and none of us were holding hands, seeing as we were flinging them around.

Then I fell on a table_—_ did I mention it was _a_ _glass table?— _hit the ground and cracked the floor, which should of made a human die, but I'm not a human, I'm a half-blood, and I also hold the Curse of Achilles. Everyone else fell on a sofa. I saw an early version of my mom, Luke_, _Connor, Travis, Grover, Chris, Clarisse, Silena, Charlie, Katie, and a few other campers.

I then saw a blonde with eyes like Thalia, A brown haired girl, and a hazel colored boy.

When I saw all the Olympians with weapons, bar Apollo seeing as he came to treat me, but I shrugged him off, stood up and brushed my clothes off.

That is when a box fell on my head.

"Ouch, dammit, why does everything happen to me?" I whined

"Shut up, Seph! Hey, there's a note on it."Thalia said, coming over

**Demi-gods, Gods, Mortals,**

**We have sent you back in time-or in your same time period-to read about our favorite heroine—and our favorite cousin **_—_**Persephone Jackson, please do not change the future, dear Olympians**_—_**we made them say that**_—_**Please do not hurt, maim, kill, or anything to any-demi-god, or mortal. Some scenes may be hard for some to listen to so please if so we will send a note to tell you. By the way Percy Apollo, Hermes, Dionyous, and a few other people you know said hello to you and there children, but we only allowed them to say hello to you, and everyone know it.**

**-The Fates/Apollo/Hermes**

**P.S. Full titles**

"Introduce your selves." Zeus thundered (pun intended)

"Annabeth Chase, Daughter of Athena." Annabeth from the past went first, spating out her mothers name.

"Connor-"

"Travis-"

"Stoll, Sons of Hermes." Connor finished

"Hey, that was my line!" Travis exclaimed

"Shut up, boys!" Katie snapped, then stepped up "Katie Gardner, Daughter of Demeter." She said smiling at her mother, who smiled right back

"Luke Castellan, Son of Hermes." Luke said, looking at his older self or what he believes is his older self.

"Charles Beckendorf, Son of Hepheatus."

"Silena Beaurgard, Daughter of Aphrodite."

"Chris Rodriguez, Son of Hermes."

"Clarisse La Rue, Daughter of Ares."

"Luke Castellan, Son of Hermes, Hero of Olympus."

"Thalia Grace, Daughter of Zeus, Lieutenant of Artemis."

" But You're a tree!" Zeus cried

"Percy saved me." She said simply, shrugging her shoulders, not caring that Hera looked like she could spit acid.

"Connor-"

"Travis"

"Stoll, Sons of Hermes."

"Charles Beckendorf, Son of Hepheatus."

"Silena Bearurgard, Daughter of Aphrodite."

"Chris Rodriguez, Son of Hermes."

"Clarisse La Rue, Daughter of Ares, Drakon Slayer."

"Nico Di Angelo, Son of Hades, BUT I was born before the oath and hid in the Lotus Casino."

"Jason Grace, Son of Jupiter."

"Piper Mclean, Daughter of Aphrodite." Silena sniffed, made a disgusted face, and turned away from her.

"Leo Valdez, Son of Heapheatus, fire user."

"Persephone 'Percy' Amphitrite Jackson, First Daughter of Poseidon, Child of the Prophecy, Battled Ares and won, Retriever of Zeus' Bolt and Hades' Helm, Finder of the Golden Fleece, Saver of Artemis and Luke, Holder of the Sky, Bane of a lot of monsters, Be header of Medusa, fought the Minotaur, _twice, _and battled so many Titans I don't know how many, but all you need to know is I defeated Kronos."

"Don't start Zeus, Hades, you have children in the room, as well." Poseidon said before they could even say anything.

"Fine," They grumbled

"I'll read." Hestia said

"**I Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher."**

"Only you, Seph, only you." Luke said, before he kissed her cheek, which caused Annabeth to glare at her, and Poseidon, Orion, and Theseus to glare at him.

**...A/N Outfit on profile**


	2. Vaporizing Time!

**_DISCLAIMER_ I DO NOT OWN PERCY JACKSON_**

**_Εδώ μπορείτε να πάτε ρε παιδιά! Το επόμενο κεφάλαιο!..._**

* * *

**Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.**

All the half-bloods nodded, which made the gods all look down, each of them asking the same question, '_was it really that bad?'_

**If your reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: **

"NO! Percy is giving advice! The world's ending!" Thalia yelled

**Close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.**

"Is that really how y'all feel?" Asked Demeter

The kids all looked down, but Annabeth took it upon herself to tell them.

"Yes, we all do you don't care about us, all you do is use us and toss us away like trash." She said bitterly, and scowled at the floor

"It isn't as bad now." Percy said while glaring at her, all of the future Greeks all realized that is was going to be extremely hard.

**Being a half-blood is dangerous**

"Check." Travis said while looking at his younger self.

**It's scary.**

"Check." Connor said

**Most the time, it gets you killed, in painful, nasty ways. **

"And check." Luke and Percy said

**If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think its fanfiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.**

"We all do." Katie said, sadly

**But if you recognize yourself in these pages-If you feel something stirring inside-stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before ****_they_**** sence it too, and they'll come for you too.**

**Don't say I didn't warn you.**

"You didn't warn me!" Hermes, Nico, Apollo, Connor, Chris, and Travis all yelled

"Sorry! I was busy fighting the manitore!" Percy yelled, at Nico

**I'm Percy Jackson.**

"We know that, idiot." Athena said

**But my real name is Persephone Brookes Jackson. But I swear if you ever call me that I will have your head on a spear. **

"But Luke calls you Persephone all the time?"

"Well Nikki, Luke is special." Percy said, while blushing like a tomato, as Aphrodite squealed in extreme happiness, Poseidon was glaring at Luke, sizing him up, and then made a mental note for the future to tell Triton to test the boy, while Hermes felt a mixture of pride, relief, and he felt nervous for his son, seeing the look Poseidon gave him.

"But we can call you that, right?" Thalia asked

"No." She answered, flatly "Not unless I'm in a really good mood."

**I'm twelve years old.**

**Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.**

**Am I a troubled kid?**

"Yes!" All the future Greeks yelled, but what surprised everyone was when Percy yelled it as well.

**Yeah. You could say that.**

**I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

"Roman?" Jason asked, perking up at the sound of Roman things

"That sounds fun." Annabeth and Athena said at the same time, which caused Annabeth to glare at the floor.

"No it sounds like torture, owl head." Poseidon said

**I know-it sounds like torture.**

Athena and Annabeth huffed while everyone else had a laughing fit.

**Most Yancy field trips were.**

**But Mr. Brunner,**

"You called Chiron that at camp, right." Connor asked

"Yes, Connor." Percy told him, with a roll of her eyes, she didn't really like them reading her thoughts.

**Our Latin teacher was leading this trip, so I had hopes.**

**Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons,**

"Weapons in a school" Athena asked baffled

**So he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

"You fall asleep in class?" Athena asked

"Athena...School is boring and stupid. It's almost as bad as your lectures." Apollo said, she didn't notice the knuckle bump the two brothers did, but the demi-gods did, and were stifling their laughter

She humped and motioned for Hestia to continue reading

**I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.**

**Boy was I wrong.**

"Perce, you're always wrong." Clarisse said, laughing

"I know, I know." Percy said, smiling lightly

**See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.**

Everyone laughed at that

"What were you aiming at babe?" Luke said his arm over her shoulder.

"You know, I don't even know, sweetie." She said her eyebrows knitted together.

**And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.**

"No more!" Luke, Connor, Travis, Chris, Hermes, and the demi-gods younger selves. They don't change much

"Luke?" Percy asked

"Yes?"

"Shut up."

"Yes ma'am."

Artemis looked just surprised as Hermes and all the past demi-gods

"Whipped." All the future Greeks said in a sing-song voice.

"Shut up." He growled

"Luke. Quiet. Now re-Luke don't you dare reach for that sword. Now read, please." She said while going to sit on his lap, everyone was shocked,, all the goddesses were shocked and amazed-_how on earth did she do know that about the sword when she wasn't even looking at him, and how did she control a man?-_Was running through everyone minds, but the boys were thinking-_seriously awesome._

**This trip I was determined to be good.**

"Like that will happen." Luke grumbled, still upset, but he knew he truly was whipped. He would do anything for Percy.

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly red-headed kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover, in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**

"She sounds awful." Demeter said truly upset "She should eat more cereal."

"Shut up about the fucking cereal lady!" Hades screamed "No one likes it!"

"Hades there is children here!" Hera yelled "Language!"

**Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of that he was had a note excusing him from PE the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

"Giving away your cover again, goat boy" Thalia tsked, laughing lightly

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death-**

"WHAT? " All the Greeks yelled, which made the gods wonder why there kids cared so much.

**death-buy-in-school-suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

"Oh..." They all said

**I'm going to kill her,' I mumbled.**

"DO IT..." Ares screamed

**Grover tried to calm me down. "It's ok. I like peanut butter."**

"So do I, but I don't like it in my hair." Apollo said

**He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch**

**"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.**

**"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."**

"Me. Like always." She sighed

**Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

"You would hit another maiden? Artemis asked angered, and glaring her evil glare

Percy looked at her not even flinching. "Yes."

**Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.**

**He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.**

**It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

"You Idiot." Athena muttered

"Athena, Athena, Athena Listen to these words carefully." Luke said "I. Would. Watch. My. Mouth. If. I. Were. You." He said, while glaring at her

**He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele for a girl our age. HE told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everyone around me was talking, and every time, I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

**Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to drive a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

**From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobfit and figured I was devil spawn. **

"No, That's Nico!" Thalia yelled

**She would point her finger at me and say, "Now honey," real sweet and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month. **

"Harsh." A lot of people muttered

**One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right." **

"Good job, Grover." Annabeth spat out.

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about the Greek funeral art.**

**Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?" **

"Nice, Seph." Luke said, before kissing her cheek

**It came out louder than I meant it to. **

"Of course it did." Hermes and all his kids groaned

**The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.**

**"Ms. Jackson," he said "did you have a comment?"**

**My face was totally red. I said "No, sir." **

"You can be polite?" Nico asked, looking shocked

"Shut it, Death Breath."

**Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele.**

**"Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"**

**I looked at the carving and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

There was a collective groan from the older gods and goddesses.

"Why did it have to be that one?" Growled Hades, not looking any better than all the other elder gods.

**"Yes," said obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because..."**

**"Well..." I racked my brain trying to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and-" **

"GOD!" Everyone yelled at Percy

**"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.**

**"Titan," I corrected myself.**

**"And... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"**

**"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.**

**"-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."**

**Some snickers from the group. **

"But she got it right!" Demeter said

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"**

**"And why, Ms. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?" **

"Busted!" Luke, Hermes, Connor, Apollo, Travis, Leo, and Chris all muttered

**"Busted," Grover muttered. **

"No!" The said people all yelled

**"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.**

**At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who every caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

**I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

**"I see," Mr Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach.**

**The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe and scattered him remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses. **

"That is because they are." Artemis sniffed

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Ms. Jackson."**

**I knew what was coming.**

**I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"**

**Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go―intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

**"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.**

**"About the Titans?"**

**"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."**

**"Oh."**

**"What you learn from me," he said," is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."**

**I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard. **

"It's for the best." Luke said

**I mean, sure it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armour and shouted: "What ho!" and challenged us, sword point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who ever lived, and their mother, and what god the worshipped.**

**But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I have never made above a C- in my life. No―he didn't want me to be as good he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.**

**I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took a long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.**

**The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

**Overhead, a large storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city.**

Every single person in the room looked at Zeus who whistled and pretended he didn't notice them.

**I figured maybe it was Global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

Now they included Poseidon in their glances, why were the two brothers fighting?

**Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**

"Obviously!" Muttered Nico darkly.

**Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school―the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere. "Detention?" Grover asked.**

**"Nah," I said "Not from Brunner. I wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean―I'm not a genius."**

**Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

Once again, the throne room filled with laughter.

**I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head for home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to get kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me. **

"Awww" All the goddesses cooed

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.**

A few chuckles at this image.

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends―I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists―and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap. **

Thalia, Luke, Percy, and Nico growled

**"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**

**I tried to stay cool. The school counsellor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper."**

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see―"**

**"―the water―"**

**"―like it grabbed her―"**

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.**

**As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey―"**

**"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks." **

"No never guess you're punishment! That's rule number #316." Hermes and all his kids cried out.

"There's a rule book?" Asked Athena

"Yes."

**That wasn't the right thing to say.**

**"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

**"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."**

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

**"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

**"But―"**

**"You―will―stay―here."**

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

**"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

**"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast? **

There was so much tension in the room that no one said a word.

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

**I wasn't so sure.**

**I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel. **

**I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.**

**Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

**But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

**Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling. Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**

**"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

**I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

**I said, "I'll―I'll try harder, ma'am."**

**Thunder shook the building.**

**"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

**All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.**

Some tense laughter

**Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

**"Well?" she demanded.**

**"Ma'am, I don't..."**

**"Your time is up," she hissed.**

**Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

"YOU SENT A FURY AFTER MY DAUGHTER?!" Poseidon roared

"Dad I'm fine please sit down." Percy yelled

**Then things got even stranger.**

"Percy." Nico simply said, at the questioning looks, in way of explination.

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

**"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me. With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword―Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

Poseidon grinned.

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

**My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

**She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

**And she flew straight at me.**

**Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

"What part of that is natural?" Asked Jason, but no one answered

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!**

"Got to love Percy's sound effects!" claimed Katie

"She. Just. Killed. My Fury!"

"On her first try as well!" gloated Poseidon, proud now that he had got over his fear for his daughter's life.

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan.**

"Aww, she's connecting herself to her father, how sweet!" cooed Aphrodite. Everyone else just ignored her.

**She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

**I was alone.**

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

"I love the mist." Sang Apollo.

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

**My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

Nico laughed "Only Percy could come up with that explanation!"

**Had I imagined the whole thing?**

**I went back outside. It had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

**I said, "Who?"**

**"Our teacher. Duh!"**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.**

**She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

**I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

**He said, "Who?"**

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

Connor groaned, "Why is it so hard for you to lie Grover?"

Hermes looked at the two of them where they sat side by side, "Travis, Connor, you better fix that!"

"Yes dad!" They chorused, the other gods looked at them in shock.

**"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

**Thunder boomed overhead and I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.**

**I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."**

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

**"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

**"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

"Ahh Chiron" Sighed Travis

"Now, he knows how to lie." Finished Connor happily.

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

And the whole room filled with laughter again.

"I'll read." Thalia said


	3. How are you still alive?

**Soo hi again….Anywayssssssss here's my quote for the day/chapter**

** "I'm not shy, I'm just holding back my awesomeness so I don't intimidate you."**

* * *

**Chapter Three**

**How are you still alive?**

* * *

**"Three old ladies knit the socks of death..." **Thalia read looking at Percy with her eyebrow raised, which in response got her a shrug.

"How do you come up with this stuff?" Hermes asked her

"I've got skill." Percy said, which caused Luke to roll his eyes "Or more like a Luke." The son of Hermes said which made his younger self look at him in confusion; did his older self go on quests, with her or something?

**I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly.**

**This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. **

**The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.**

**Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.**

"You are psycho, Seph." Clarisse reminded her, Percy rolled her eyes, but everyone saw the smile on her face.

**It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed.**

"Well you will be safe for a while, and that will make me worry a little less." Poseidon said

"Not quite." Sally said who hadn't said a word since the interdiction, "It said almost." She reprehend lightly

**Almost.**

**But Grover couldn't fool me.**

"He really can't lie." Hermes said disappointed

**When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, and then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.**

**Something was going on. Something ****_had _****happened at the museum.**

"No shit, Sherlock," said Thalia.

But all the adults and Gods were thinking; _I thought they were friends….._

**I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.**

**The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.**

**I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs.**

"That doesn't surprise me." Said Athena, "She is a Sea Spawn after all, and we all know that there-."

All the future Greeks through glares at her, which made her stop midsentence

**I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.**

**Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.**

Hermes and Apollo were laughing their asses of, while the other gods just smiled. The Romans had a confused face, as the Greeks were laughing as well, but Sally looked at her daughter, "Percy!" She said, her face was stern and disapproving.

"It means—" started Athena.

"We don't care." Apollo called to her.

**The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.**

**Fine, I told myself. Just fine.**

**I was homesick.**

"Wimp," said Ares, who then got blasted with saltwater.

**I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**.

**And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view** **of the woods outside my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend,**

**I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.**

**As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for.**

"At least he studied," said Hestia smiled after seeing the look on Athena's face

**I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.**

"Good," said Athena, "Maybe that'll help him pick up his real identity faster."

**The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the ****_Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology _****across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon,**

"I think Chiron would be insulted by that." Hermes cracked a smile.

**or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

**I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.**

**I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. ****_I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson._**

**I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.**

**I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.**

**I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.**

**I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said,**

**_"..._** **worried about Percy, sir."**

"Oh no," Poseidon muttered.

**I froze.**

**I'm not usually an eavesdropper,**

"Yeah, and I'm not the god of the sun." Apollo was nodding like he actually meant it, then he got slapped in the back of his head, by the honor of Artemis.

**but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult. I inched closer.**

"All right," said Hermes, "she's got a point. I wouldn't be able to stop myself." Ares, Hephaestus, and Apollo had to agree.

**"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the ****_school_****! Now that we know for sure, and ****_they _****know too—"**

**"We would only make matters worse by rushing her," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the girl to mature more."**

**"But she may not have time. The summer solstice dead line— ****_"_**

**"Will have to be resolved without her, Grover. Let her enjoy his ignorance while she still can."**

**"Sir, she ****_saw _****her... ."**

**"Her imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince her of that."**

**"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."**

**"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall—"**

**The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.**

"NO" yelled Hermes, "That's rule number : 81 Never give away your position!" His kids looked horrified at Percy like she had just committed a homicide and killed over a hundred people.

**Mr. Brunner went silent.**

**My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.**

"Good, get out of there while you can," said Hermes.

"Hermes, I will not have you corrupting my child." Said Poseidon.

**A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.**

**I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.**

**A few seconds later I heard a slow ****_clop-clop-clop, _****like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, and then moved on.**

**A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.**

**Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."**

**"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."**

**"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."**

**"Don't remind me."**

"Oh, that most be horrible." Hermes and Apollo said at the same time.

**The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.**

**I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.**

**Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.**

**Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night. Our school was pretty old or pretty cheap, seeing as they had girl dorms across the boys, and to get to the girl dorms you had to go through the boys room.**

**"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"**

**I didn't answer.**

**"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"**

**"Just... tired." I turned so he couldn't read my expression, got my bag that I had put in his room earlier, so we could try and study together. I grabbed the bag and walked to the door that lead to the girl dorms.**

"That won't work." Dionysus mumbled.

"Why not." Aphrodite asked.

"Satyr's can read emotions." He answered, before going back to his wine magazine, only a few noticed that he was perking his ears and was looking over the magazine, and actually listening.

**I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.**

**But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.**

**The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam,**

"Three hours?" All the demi-gods asked, horrified, even the Romans.

**my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.**

**For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.**

**"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."**

**His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.**

**I mumbled, "Okay, sir."**

**"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."**

**My eyes stung.**

"Chiron really needs to work on his pep talks, doesn't he?" asked Hera with a small smile.

**Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.**

**"Right," I said, trembling.**

**"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be—"**

**"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."**

**"Percy—"**

**But I was already gone.**

**On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.**

**The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were ****_rich _****juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.**

"Yeah, maybe his father but his uncle is the king of the gods." Zeus sounded really proud at that moment. Hades look over at Poseidon and pointed at Zeus and asked, "Was he dropped on his head when he was a kid, or is he just crazy."

"HEY" Zeus yelled.

**They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.**

**What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.**

**"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."**

**They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.**

**The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had,**

**so there we were, together again, heading into the city.**

**During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen.**

"He should," said Dionysus, "If he didn't, then he'd be caught off guard, and those brats would never reach camp."

Everyone was surprised at this statement, as this was completely unlike Dionysus.

"What?" He asked, clearly confused why everyone was looking at him with two heads

"Nothing." Apollo smiled a wicked smile.

**Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.**

**Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.**

**I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"**

"Probably gave him a heart attack," said Hera. "That wasn't nice."

"Yeah, Kelp head that wasn't very nice!" Nico told her

**Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha—what do you mean?"**

**I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.**

**Grover's eye twitched. "How much ****_did _****you hear?"**

**"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"**

**He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers …"**

**"Grover—"**

**"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."**

**"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."**

"Told you." Dionysus yawned.

**His ears turned pink.**

**From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer.**

**The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:**

**Grover Underwood**

**Keeper**

**Half-Blood Hill**

**Long Island, New York**

**(800) 009-0009**

"Why is it like that?" asked Athena

"I'm helping prepare them so when they go to school it will help with their dyslexia." Dionysus said as if it was obvious.

**"What's Half—"**

**"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."**

**My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.**

**"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."**

**He nodded. "Or...or if you need me."**

**"Why would I need you?"**

**It came out harsher than I meant it to. **

**Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."**

**I stared at him.**

**All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended ****_me._**

**"Grover," I said, "What exactly are you protecting me from?"**

**There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs.**

"Rotten eggs?" asked Apollo.

**The driver cursed and steered the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

**After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.**

**We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.**

Athena's eyes widened as she started to realize what she's seeing.

**The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice****_. _****There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.**

"Please, not them." Poseidon whimpered and looked really pale.

**I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.**

**All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.**

**The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.**

Poseidon started freaking out even more.

**I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.**

**"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man—"**

**"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"**

**"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"**

"Not the time, Percy." surprisingly it was Hermes who said this.

**"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."**

**The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.**

**"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."**

**"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there." "Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.**

**Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that ****_snip _****across four lanes of traffic.**

Poseidon then fainted into a puddle of water, which seemed to be whispering a chant of no, no, no.

**Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for—Sasquatch or Godzilla. At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**

**The passengers cheered.**

**"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

**At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**

**The passengers cheered.**

**"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

"Oh no," said Hermes, "Poseidon is going to have a heart attack."

**"What last time?"**

**"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."**

**"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"**

**"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."**

**This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.**

**Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.**

**No answer.**

**"Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**

**He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**

"All right, that's the end of the chapter" said Thalia "Who wants to read next?"

"I would like to read." Aphrodite said.

"You can read?" Artemis looked surprised.

"Oh, Shut Up." She said and started to read.

"**Chapter 3 Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants**."


	4. Grover unexpectedly Loses His Pants

**Quote for the day/chapter**

**"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life."**

* * *

**A/N**

**Hello peasants! (One Direction reference)**

**I'm seriously starting this chapter at…..*looks at clock* 6:31 A.M. and I'm not a morning person, so I'm pretty happy for being up at this ungodly hour.**

**(A tad bit more Luke/Percy Fluff/relationship in here, seeing as I got like four PM's saying they want some more so yeah but I hope its not cheesy because I don't really like cheesy ships and such …..)**

* * *

Είμαι τόσο κουρασμένος, που δεν της ακόμα αστείο...Τέλος πάντων εδώ είναι το κεφάλαιο.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

**Grover Unexpectedly Loses his Pants.**

* * *

**"Grover Unexpectedly Loses his Pants…"** Aphrodite said

"I hope he was wearing underwear." Hera said.

**Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.**

"Percy!" was groaned out from all the half-bloods, including the lost hero trio, who decided they liked her.

**I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to he sixth grade?"**

"I would be freaked out if that happened." Hermes nodded.

**Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom.**

**Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.**

**"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.**

**"I don't live there anymore!" Percy called out looking at the Stolls, Hermes, Apollo, and the younger demi-gods. "So don't even ****_think_**** about it."**

**A word about my mother, before you meet her.**

"Amazing!" Thalia said

"She makes the best blue cookies!" Clarisse said

"Moms wonderful!" Nico called out

"Best Mom Ever!" Percy said

"Sally is like the best cook ever!" Luke yelled

The gods were shocked, as was Sally.

"Did you just call me mom?" she asked Nico

"Oh yeah, when I'm not in the underworld or in Camp Half-Blood, I live with you and Percy." Nico said

Sally just nodded

**Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, **

**which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.**

Poseidon was glaring at space and muttering under his breath.

**Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.**

**The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.**

**I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because ****_it _****makes her sad. She has no pictures.**

**See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.**

**Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.**

"I'm surprised Poseidon," said Athena, "You chose a very smart lover."

"Hey," said Poseidon.

**She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**

"Demigods are never easy kids, what with the monsters and all." Athena told the book. In the back ground Hermes and Apollo were laughing at her for that little mistake.

**Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him,**

Percy glared at the floor, which Luke noticed and pulled her closer to him, kissing his cheek, she grabbed his hand and laid her head on his shoulder, which caused Luke to smile at her head and kiss it lightly.

**then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nick named him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**

Pretty much everyone was a sickly green and Luke was glaring at the book, Percy had told him about her first step-father, and well he wanted to slaughter the man, to make it more appropriate for younger readers.

**Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... well, when I came home is a good example.**

**I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.**

**Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."**

**"Where's my mom?"**

**"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"**

"What?" All the demi-gods looked like outraged siblings.

_Oh no what's going to happen when they find out about the hitting?_ Percy thought, biting her lip, and nuzzling Luke, even more

**That was it. No ****_Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?_**** Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something..**

"Ewwwwwww." Aphrodite screamed, "Not even I can make that pig even remotely good-looking." she was sneering at the end. Even Dionysus looked disgusted.

**He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "Father-Daughter secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**

Everything started to shake and Poseidon looked murderous. Thalia and Jason had lightning crackling around them, all the shadows were spinning around the room courtesy of Nico, Clarrisse was now gripping Maimer, all the sons of Hermes looked as if they were planning something, and everyone else was glaring at the books.

"Calm down, brother." Zeus said, "You are going to destroy something important if you keep it up."

"He hit her." Poseidon snarled.

"Yes, and you can kill him later." Zeus finally got him to calm down but Poseidon was still muttering and cursing.

**"I don't have any cash," I told him.**

**He raised a greasy eyebrow.**

**Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.**

Athena then went wide-eyed after hearing this statement, she understood why she would marry someone like that pig.

**"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"**

**Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. **

**"Come on, Gabe," he said. "She just got here."**

"At least someone is half decent." Demeter said.

**"Am I ****_right_****?****_" _****Gabe repeated.**

**Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.**

"Forget that I said anything." She mumbled.

**"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."**

"He's never going to win ever again." Dionysus sneered.

**"Your report card came, Smartass!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"**

**I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.**

"Yuck," said Aphrodite, leaning against her husband.

**I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.**

**"Sarcasm sweet sarcasm." Apollo and Hermes said happily.**

**Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds,**

**or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.**

**But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic—how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.**

**Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"**

**She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.**

**My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room.**

All the goddesses smiled at that.

**Her eyes sparkle and change colour in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few grey streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.**

"That woman is a saint." Dementer said, "I would have curst him to Tartarus and back for just the mess alone."

Everybody nodded at that statement.

**"Oh, Percy." she hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"**

**Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central.**

"Jealous." All the males shouted.

**She'd brought me a huge bag of 'free samples', the way she always did when I come home.**

**We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little girl doing all right?**

"That is so cute!" squealed Aphrodite.

"All right, honey," said Hephaestus, "No need to go breaking our eardrums for that."

**I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.**

**From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"**

**I gritted my teeth.**

As did everyone in the room, bar Annabeth who kept glaring at Luke and Percy, they looked at Percy and saw Luke telling her stuff into her ear, as she smiled a content smile, and that seemed to make him happy, but that made Annabeth jealousy grow even more.

**My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.**

"Or a god, eh, eh uncle P." Hermes smirked. Poseidon just smiled.

**For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself.**

**I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.**

**Until that trip to the museum...**

**"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"**

**"No, Mom."**

"Don't lie to your mother," scolded Hera.

"Hera is right, tell your mother she would understand." Poseidon agreed.

"What do you mean she would understand?" Athena asked.

"Sally can see trough the mist." Was the simple answer

"I know now dad." She said smiling at him, her and Luke coming out of their bubble.

**I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.'**

**She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.**

**"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."**

**My eyes widened. "Montauk?"**

**"Three nights—same cabin."**

**"When?"**

**She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."**

**I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.**

**Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"**

**I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.**

**"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."**

**Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"**

**"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."**

**"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."**

"Aah, bribery in its many forms," smiled Hermes with approval.

**Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**

"WHAT?" screamed Aphrodite, "NOT THE CLOTHS."

"Aphrodite, you can always go shopping after the book if it will make you feel better." Hephaestus soothed.

**"Yes, honey," my mother said.**

**"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."**

**"We'll be very careful."**

**Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."**

**Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.**

"DO IT!" Everyone (Bar Annabeth) yelled

**But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.**

**Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?**

**"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."**

**Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.**

"That's a lost cause." Athena sneered.

**"Yeah, whatever," he decided.**

**He went back to his game.**

**"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"**

**For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes—the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride—as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.**

**But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.**

**An hour later we were ready to leave.**

**Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.**

**"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch." Like I'd be the one driving.**

**I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.**

"Scratch it Percy, scratch it." Hermes smirked.

"No blow it up!" Charlie said

**Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair case as if he'd been shot from a cannon. **

"She is very powerful, maybe to powerful." Zeus muttered so no one could hear him.

**Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.**

**I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.**

**Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets,**

Athena shivered, as did Annabeth, "I hate spiders."

**and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.**.

**I loved the place.**

**We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.**

"That's so sweet," squealed Aphrodite

**As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.**

"It's like she's still connected to you, Poseidon." said Hestia.

**We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.**

"What's with the blue food."

**I guess I should explain the blue food.**

**See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.**

"I think that's what attracted Kelp head in the first place." Athena looked thoughtful

**When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.**

**Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.**

**"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."**

**Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."**

"I already am," said Poseidon

**I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.**

"He's going to ignore that, and look at the positive things you have done." Hera said motherly.

**"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when he left?"**

**She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."**

**"But... he knew me as a baby."**

**"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."**

**I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.**

"I visited her while Sally was sleeping," said Poseidon.

**I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me...**

**I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.**

**"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"**

**She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.**

**"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."**

**"Because you don't want me around?"**

"That's a horrible thing to say." someone muttered.

**I regretted the words as soon as they were out. Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said—that it was best for me to leave Yancy.**

"Good, you regret it," said Hera

**"Because I'm not normal," I said.**

**"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."**

**"Safe from what?"**

**She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.**

**During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.**

Everyone turned to Poseidon, who shrugged. "I probably asked him to check on her."

**Before that—a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.**

"Impressive," said Ares.

**In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.**

**I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.**

_Wow, she is very loyal_ thought Artemis _Maybe a little to loyal._

**"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."**

**"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"**

**"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."**

**My head was spinning. Why would my dad—who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born— talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?**

**"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."**

**"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."**

**She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.**

**That night I had a vivid dream.**

**It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.**

Everyone looked at Zeus and Poseidon, who just shrugged.

**The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.**

Everyone looked at Hades, who said. "Why are you looking at me, I haven't done anything jet."

**I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, ****_No!_**

**I woke with a start.**

**Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.**

**With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, **

**"Hurricane."**

**I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But **

**the ocean seemed to have forgotten. **

"Uncle P, why'd you forget?" asked Apollo, who then got whacked in the back of his head by Artemis.

**Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.**

**Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.**

**My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.**

**Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.**

"Well, what is he?" asked Apollo.

"Didn't we say that he was a satyr earlier, you idiot." Artemis said.

**"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"**

**My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.**

**"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"**

**I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.**

**_"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" _****he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you ****_tell _****her?"**

**I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on—**

**and where his legs should be ... where his legs should be ...**

**My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: ****_"Percy. _****Tell me ****_now_****!"**

**I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.**

**She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. ****_Go_****!****_"_**

**Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.**

**Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.**

"No shit Sherlock." Ares sneered.

"That' the end of the chapter." Aphrodite said, "Who wants to read next?"

* * *

**Chapter 4**

**My mother teaches me bullfighting.**


	5. My mother teaches me bullfighting

"She was beautiful, but not like the girls in the magazines. She was beautiful, for the way she thought. She was beautiful, for that sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. She was beautiful, for her ability to make others smile even if she was sad. No, she wasn't beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She was beautiful, deep down to her soul."

^Quote of the day/chapter^

P.s. Luke HATES Athena. Mainly because she's mean to Percy, and because he doesn't really like no it alls.

* * *

**Chapter four**

**My mother teaches me bullfighting.**

* * *

"That doesn't sound good." Hestia said, they looked over at Percy who was looking at Luke with a pained look, he sighed and opened his arms and she crawled into his lap and snuggled into him.

Annabeth looked livid as jealously grew inside her. The younger Luke was blushing looking at his older self, and Percy who seemed to have calmed down some of her sadness, from what was going to happen.

**We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the windshield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.**

"My kind of driving, I like this lady!" Ares shouted

Poseidon looked at Sally and his daughter worriedly, that isn't good.

**Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane,**

"Yes. Yes you have." Conner said seriously, which caused all the Demi-gods to start laughing, except for Percy who was giving them a stare that wasn't even close to the -I-will-kill-you-later-stare- which shut them up completely.

"Mean ass friends." She said huffing

"It's okay I still love you." Luke told her which, might of gotten a very angry daughter of Athena, to blanch out, Thalia and Nico looked over and rolled their eyes at her, '_such a drama queen'_ they both thought.

**or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants. (Don't ask me, I blame the ADHD.)**

"True." All the demi-gods said.

All the adults had to stifle laughter at the looks on there faces.

**But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo- lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal, which doesn't smell pleasant at all.**

"Gross." Aphrodite stated, with Demeter looking just as green as her.

**All I could think to say was, "So you and my mom….know each other?"**

Everyone started laughing except Poseidon, Sally, and Percy, Percy was pouting at everyone. "I was twelve!" She said "Give me a break."

**Graver's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."**

"Stalker!" All the immature people yelled

"Shut up!" Hera yelled

**"Watching me?"**

"See she agrees." Hermes said to Hera, who glared at him, which had him rolling his eyes.

**"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I am your friend." He assured, acting as if I didn't understand him.**

"That's Grover for you." Thalia said, smiling "Oh and were so telling him about how you described him." She said to Percy, and being mature, she stuck her tongue out.

** "Urn … what are you, exactly?"**

"A satyr!" All the demi-gods yelled

**"That doesn't matter right now."**

**"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey-" **

"Oh he's not going to like that Pierce." Dionysus said

"Why's that?" Demeter asked

"It's extremely offensive to them." He replied

**Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!"**

**I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. **

"Yeah I had to." Said Nico

**Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.**

"Ohhhh" Conner and Travis both said "You are so not a good friend." Chris followed, jokingly, but they all three got a heated glare from Luke and mouthed 'not now.'

**"Goat!" he cried.**

"He said it didn't matter." Apollo pointed out

Thalia looked at Percy, at who she considered a sister, and noticed how she was curling around Luke looking for comfort. It hurt still, she had of course liked Luke, and she thought when they found him at Mt. Tam that he would ask her out, and then the prophecy hit her and she got offered to be the lieutenant of the hunters, she thought he would object, and if he had then she would have been the child of the prophecy, and then she had seen how he'd paled when Artemis had asked Percy to join as well, which even though she turned them down, she could she how she had disliked not getting asked to be lieutenant, but she understood, he loved her.

**"What?"**

"Slow!" Nico said, laughing, sure him and Thalia gave her a hard time but she was his sister, and he loved her-brotherly of course.

**"You just said it didn't matter."**

**"I think like a little girl!" Apollo yelped**

**"Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"**

**"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like … Mr. Brunner's myths?"**

**"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"**

**"So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!"**

Athena groaned.

"Shut up, owl head, you'll do us all a favor." Luke said, everyone looked at him as if he was crazy.

"You insolent bra-"

"Athena do not speak to my child that way." Hermes said leaving an underlying threat.

**"Of course."**

**"Then why-"**

**"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."**

"Well at the moment she's asleep." Beckendorf said gruffly.

**"Who I-wait a minute, what do you mean?"**

**The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.**

Poseidon had trouble finding a steady breathing, as was Sally.

**"Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."**

"Safety is good, Very good," Poseidon said breathlessly

**The demi-gods were jealous, but soon realized that if anyone deserved it, then it would be Percy.**

**"Safety from what? Who's after me?" I asked confused, I was starting to think that they were all crazy.**

**"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."**

"I like how he described me." Hades said, happily, Zeus looked over to Poseidon, and made the motion for him being crazy.

**"Grover!"**

**"Terrible. Why would he say such a thing?" Hera asked**

**They ignored her.**

**"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"**

**I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.**

**My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and ****_PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES_**** signs on white picket fences.**

**"Where are we going?" I asked**

**"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."**

"You are amazing to put up with that kind of _child."_ Hera told Sally, which caused everyone to roll their eyes.

**"The place you didn't want me to go." I said, feeling angry at my mother-**

"Why?" Artemis asked, as Sally looked hurt.

**She had held me back my whole life from being here, maybe my father was there, and she still didn't send me. I was having trouble keeping my voice polite and even.**

**"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."**

Katie remembered that night, she had heard a few of the campers shout saying they needed help, there was a new demi-god, and Grover was back, and that she had been injured, to get Apollo campers.

"Nothing new for Seph." Clarisse said

**"Because some old ladies cut yarn."**

**"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means-the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to … when someone's about to die."**

**"Whoa. You said 'you.'"**

"True." Chris said

**"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"**

"He said that as well." Beckendorf said

**"You meant 'you.' As in me."**

**"I meant you, like 'someone.' Not you, you."**

**"Children!" my mom said.**

**"**Thank you!" Artemis said

**She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid-a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.**

**"What was that?" I asked.**

"Oh you know, a monster." Thalia said as if it was an everyday occurrence

**"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."**

**I didn't know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.**

Everyone else was too.

**Outside, nothing but rain and darkness-the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill me.**

"Slo-"Thalia started.

"Shut. Up," Luke said, "she's asleep and if you wake her well one you'd be dead and to this is a bad chapter for her."

**Then I thought about Mr. Brunner … and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling -BOOM- and our car exploded.**

"WHAT!?" everyone exclaimed.

**I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.**

"Painful." Silena winced

**I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."**

"Ow is all you say?" Jason asked, shocked

**"Persephone!" my mom shouted.**

**"I'm okay…"**

"No you're not!" Poseidon said, glaring at Zeus

**I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.**

She moved as if she could feel the rain coming through, and if you looked just right you could see a silver necklace, that had an 'L' on it.

**Lightning.**

"DAD!" Thalia and Jason screamed looking at him,

Zeus could only hope that his future self didn't hurt his niece.

**That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"**

"GROVER!" Thalia and Nico yelled.

**He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. **

"Oh Percy!" Silena said, she remembered she had given her clothes because hers looked terribly rugged.

**I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!**

**Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.**

There was some tense laughter at this.

**"Percy," my mother said, "we have to …" Her voice faltered.**

**I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.**

**I swallowed hard. "Who is-"**

**"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."**

"Listen to her," Poseidon urged, no one had the heart to tell him he was talking to a book.

**My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.**.

**"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy-you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"**

"That's me!" Thalia said, startling everyone.

**"What?"**

"Don't what my tree!" Thalia said, offended.

**Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**

"See. I'm beautiful," Thalia said smugly.

**"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."**

**"Mom, you're coming too."**

"Loyal," Artemis, Athena, Aphrodite, and Hestia, said.

**Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.**

**"No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover."**

"Loyal," everyone said now.

**"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.**

"I'm hungry!" moaned practically every male in the room.

**The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us,**

Thalia, Luke, and Nico rolled their eyes.

**making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head,**

"Finally!" Younger Luke exclaimed, which his older self chuckled, Younger Luke looked at him with a questioning look, "We do that a lot in the future." He said which got him s look of understanding.

**because his hands-huge meaty hands-were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head … was his head. And the points that looked like horns …**

"The Minotaur," Ares said in shock.

Everyone was wondering how she was alive.

**"He doesn't want us," my mother told me. "He wants you.**

**Besides, I can't cross the property line."**

**"But…"**

**"We don't have time, Persephone. Go. Please."**

"Please," everyone whispered. Zeus and Hades were also worried for their niece. She didn't seem to be so bad.

**I got mad, then-mad at my mother, at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.**

"It _is _a bull!" Thalia screamed.

**I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."**

"She can't," Hestia said sadly.

**"I told you-"**

**"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."**

**I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.**

"So does that mean he's heavy or light?" Conner asked.

"It means that he was lighter than expected, but he was still heavy," Athena explained.

"That's Grover's maiden to the rescue again," Apollo and Hermes said.

"Is he really my brother?" Artemis sighed.

**Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.**

**Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine-bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps,**

"That's a lot of 'ceps," Leo said.

**all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except underwear-I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms-**

Apollo and Hermes were literally on the floor laughing

**which would've looked funny, **

"It is funny," Apollo protested.

**except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.**

**His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns-enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.**

"Only you, kelp head," Thalia said affectionately.

**I recognized the monster, all right.**

"YAY! First time your brain works!" Nico cheered, at his sleeping sister, oh she would so kill them right now.

**He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us.**

**But he couldn't be real.**

**I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's-"**

"Don't say it," Athena said.

**"Pasiphae's son," my mother said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."**

**"But he's the Min-"**

Athena rolled her eyes.

**"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."**

**The pine tree was still way too far-a hundred yards uphill at least.**

**I glanced behind me again.**

"Don't look back. Just go!" Poseidon screamed.

**The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows-or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.**

**"Food?" Grover moaned.**

The two immature gods laughed.

**"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"**

Abby leaned forward.

**"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."**

**As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro**

Everyone leaned forward.

**by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.**

**Not a scratch, I remembered Gabe saying.**

"Oops," Thalia and Nico laughed.

**Oops.**

"We think like her!" Nico said in horror.

He and Thalia mock fainted.

**"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way- directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"**.

**"How do you know all this?"**

**"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."**

"No. She was being a mom," Hera said.

**The mortal wondered if their parents would do that.**

**"Keeping me near you? But-"**

**Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.**

Poseidon could be mistaken for a ghost, paler than Hades.

**He'd smelled us.**

**The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.**

"** The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.**

**My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."**

**I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right-it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.**

Ares had a crazy grin on his face and everyone including Dionysus (not that he'll admit it) held their breath.

**He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.**

**The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.**

Everyone let out a breath.

"This is getting good!" Ares said.

Aphrodite slapped him before leaning against her husband lacing his hand though hers. He looked shocked but smiled when she sighed happily.

**The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.**

**We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.**

**The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.**

**"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"**

"Run!" Poseidon said, "Run!"

Luke was holding Percy in a vice grip, all he was thonking about was the skinny twelve year old he had found almost passed out clothes in shreds, long curly raven black hair that came down to her waist that was in a messy bun, she had a red rain coat on, a black tank-top, and

**But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.**

**"Mom!" My anger from earlier almost vanishing, for then at least, as soon as I saw her getting picked up by the Minotaur.**

**She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"**

**Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes,melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply … gone.**

**"No!" I yelled **

**"Ass kicking Percy!" All the future Greeks yelled (Obliviously not Percy)**

.

**Anger replaced my fear. New found strength burned in my limbs-the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.**

Ares leaned forward so much that he fell off his throne. This set everyone off and Ares climbed back on his throne grumbling.

**The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.**

**I couldn't allow that.**

**I stripped off my red rain jacket.**

Nico and Thalia face palmed.

**"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"**

"You need better insults," Nico said.

**"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.**

Apollo snickered. "Meaty fists."

**I had an idea-**

"You're doomed," Thalia said simply.

**a stupid idea,**

"You're safe," Nico and Luke said.

**but better than no idea at all. I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.**

"It won't work," Athena said.

**But it didn't happen like that.**

**The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.**

**Time slowed down.**.

**My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.**

**How did I do that?**

**I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**

**"My poor poor tree," Thalia sobbed.**

**The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.**

The girls all yelled, "EW!"

**The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.**

"At least you figured that out," Chris said

**Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.**

Everyone winced.

**"Food!" Grover moaned.**

Tense laughter.

**The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might.**

"Never in a million years." Ares said

**The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then-snap!**

Everyone but the future Greeks gasped at her.

**The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. **

"No." Posidon said, breathing hard

**When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.**

"At least you have a weapon," Athena said.

**The monster charged.**

**Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.**

"And that was without thinking folks!" Apollo said in an announcer's voice, "What can she do with thinking?"

**The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate-not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, **

Athena got it now, as did Ares.

**but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.**

**The monster was gone.**

"Thank gods." Sally said relived

**The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open.**

"Ouch," younger Katie said.

**I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish. **

"Perfectly normal," Athena said**.**

**I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help,**

"So loyal," Hera said.

Hestia beamed at the hero.

**so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farmhouse. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover-I wasn't going to let him go.**

Everyone paused in respect for Sally, which seeing as Sally from their time was there it was kind of weird.

**The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a boy with blond hair, and icy pale blue eyes.**

**They both looked down at me, and the boy said, "She's hurt, Chiron, she needs Will." He said looking at me with worry**

"She was... for a bit," Thalia snickered.

**"Silence, Luke," the man said. "She's still conscious. Bring her inside."**

**And truthfully I never knew how close his fate was tied to mine.**

**Literally.**

"…..And done."

"Food!" All the males yelled, bar Luke, which woke up Percy.


	6. Don't Wake Her Up She'll maim youfood

"The first time I saw you, I knew it was you true, that I'd love you forever, and that's what I'll do. You don't know what you do to me, you don't have a clue, you don't know what it's like to be, me looking at you."

^^^Quote of the day^^^

* * *

**Don't wake her up unless you wish to be maimed/food**

**Chapter six**

**~Third Person P.O.V~**

* * *

Persephone Jackson was not an easy one to wake up, by no means. But put her in a room with over 20 boys-half being gods- that want food, well that will wake you up.

* * *

**~Percy's P.O.V~**

* * *

I was in an ever so peaceful sleep, which was a rarity, when I got awoken by the sound of many boys yelling 'food'. I groaned and tried to move closer to Luke, but that just wouldn't work. I sighed before opening my eyes, I sat up and looked around and saw all my friends, looking at me with fear, they had seen what I had done to Thalia when she woke me up, at 9:42 on a Saturday morning. Yeah, it was bad. Really bad. Luke, Nico, Connor, Travis, Charlie, and Chris had to rip me off of her.

"Seph, it's time to eat." Luke told me, nudging me in the cheek with his nose.

"I want to sleep" I moaned, ever so desperately

"If you get up, I'll let you hit Conner and Travis as many times as you want." He offered

I saw Conner and Travis' give us dear-in-the-headlight-looks going towards Luke, the gods, all the younger demi-gods, and the lost hero trio, looked at us with amusement, and uncertainty, not really understanding why Luke would offer that.

"Did they wake me up?" I asked, smirking at them.

"They helped." He said looking at them with an amused expression.

"Boys after we eat lets go to the arena." I said happily

They both gulped but nodded lightly.

"Carry me?" I asked Luke

"Of course, Mademoiselle," he said using one of my ever so many nicknames.

And he stood up, as was everyone else, after watching our little show. Annabeth was glaring at me, and was trying to act like an angel to younger Luke-which is really weird-and then ran up to Thalia trying to talk to her, but she ignored her and talked to Nico, asking about what he thought was going to happen when I 'maim' the Stolls.

"Pretty boy!" A rough voice called which was of course known as my practically war loving half-sister, Clarisse-her cabin still likes me, even though I beat her dad, she understood and let me tell her what happened, and we got to stay friends-called out to Luke.

"War chick?" He called, back to her chuckling

"Are you going to see the Sea Princess? Or are you going to hog her?" She asked laughing

"Be nice you're with my little brother." He reminded her

"Luke Castellan!" She yelled, "I will get you later!" It was a mocking threat all of the demi-gods knew she didn't mean it.

We got to the dining hall a table that could fit probably a hundred people on it was there then through a door was the massive kitchen.

Luke let me down and I sprinted through the door and to the ever so amazing place you cook in.

I started getting stuff out for a triple chocolate cake, cupcakes, and then I heard someone behind me.

"Hi I'm Piper, uh, do you want any help?" She asked

"Sure can you make French fries and fried chicken?" I asked, I knew people were watching me but I just smiled, as she nodded her head.

"Great." I said then in about an hour I was done cooking with her help than, I had everything served up.

"When did you learn to cook?" My mom asked me

"A few years ago." I told her

We ate quickly and the boys who were just _staving_ was done in about ten minutes.

Then we went to the throne room

* * *

**WARNING: DISCLAIMER BELOW**

**Alriht there may another chapter later in the idk?**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson or Any Characters. I'm a fifth-teen year old girl, not a man. I just want to make a reading the Fanfic Story.**

**I DO NOT OWN PERCY JACKSON IF THAT CHANGES THEN I"LL LET YOU KNOW. THANK YOU PEASENTS!**


End file.
